Originally posted by Laurentiu Cristofor 3 votes for discontinuing K mount. It's time to move on. I'd like to see what they can do without the burden of backward compatibility.
+1 to this. Voted for the discontinuation too, though hoping that will also mean an adapter with AF and AV link for legacy K-mount.
The NEX line has sparked the interest of many folks (esp. RF users) for its ability to use all sorts of lenses and very good, small and (sometimes over-rated ) RF ones.
Pentax has the chance to expand the user base fast and big with a mount that can use RF lenses and any lenses with flange distance longer than that. (can ignore the NEX lenses with a shorter flange distance
)
A K-mount adapter for such a camera will help ease the pain of course.
Yes, not everyone will be happy, but too many folks who want a K-mount continuation are not active buyers of K-mount lenses anyway (most are interested in legacy support for their old MF lenses and seldom buy anything new); plus there can be an adapter so its not the end of the world.
Pentax does not get much financial benefit for these users.
At least with a suddenly exploded user base with a camera that can make use of any lens (including K-mount); the much larger user base will always have ppl who will buy into a few Pentax lenses here and there. The bigger snowball can then move on from there with a bigger momentum.
Just in case someone comes up with a "There is the NEX for you", here's why I prefer Pentax :
1. Poor opinion of Sony (always trying to sneak in proprietary stuff; they are pretty screwed on many consumer electronics fronts because of this, but don't seem to realize it yet) Ok, I like my PS1;2 and 3
2. Lousy native lenses; the only good one (perhaps) isn't cheap at all compared to what Pentax sells their good lenses for.
3. Wrong form factor
4. Pentax makes nice and generally small lenses and I believe this will continue with a new mount.
5. I like Pentax approach to SLRs and DSLRs so far.
So for me :
FF;
Discontinue K-mount (but with adapter);
Better AF;
Uncrippled K-mount;
MILC
Faster flash sync
Smaller camera (wrt K5; but no smaller than maybe ME Super)
Before someone says I can easily say this since I have few lenses; I do have more than 20 and quite a few $X,XXX in Pentax stuff.
Things just need to move forward (less pain with an adapter of course)